Tool-tip for multimedia files

ABSTRACT

A tool-tip presentation system for multimedia files. The tool-tip presentation system can be configured to respond to proximity events associated with a selected entry in a list of multimedia files such as screen captured images or complete audio files. Based upon the selected entry, a corresponding multimedia sample such as a thumbnail image of a screen captured image or an audio sample of the audio file can be retrieved and presented as a tool-tip. In particular, the tool-tip can be displayed in a position which is proximate to the selected entry. In this way, one who interacts with the list of multimedia files need not load each complete multimedia file in the list in order to determine the contents of the multimedia file. Rather, the multimedia sample in the tool-tip can suffice.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a Divisional of U.S. application Ser. No.10/294,801, filed Nov. 14, 2002, entitled “TOOL-TIP FOR MULTIMEDIAFILES,” which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to graphical user interface elements andmore particularly to a tool-tip.

2. Description of the Related Art

Typical tool-tips are miniaturized graphical elements superimposed overan interface element in a user interface so as to provide supplementalinformation to one interacting with the user interface. Tool-tips canrange from simple textual data, to graphical images. Tool-tips initiallywere developed to provide an enhanced explanation of the functionalityof an underlying button in a tool box. Tool-tips had become necessaryprimarily because the graphical imagery in the button had become socomplex as to lose its association with the underlying functionality ofthe button. Consequently, textual tool-tips were provided in order to“explain” the underlying functionality of the button in ordinaryconversational language.

In the conventional tool-tip system, a tool-tip can become activatedupon the occurrence of a user interface event such as a mouse-over eventassociated with a particular user interface elements such as a button ora menu item. While the tool-tip may not become activated immediately,the tool-tip can become activated in those circumstances where the mousepointer giving rise to the mouse-over event does not move beyond theboundaries of the user interface element. To that end, the hesitancy ofthe mouse pointer can be treated as an indication that the user does notrecognize the consequence of selecting the user interface element andwill require additional information regarding the functionality of theuser interface element.

Importantly, tool-tips have been limited to providing supplementalinformation regarding the functionality of an underlying user interfaceelement. Such user interface elements typically include menu items andtool bar buttons. Tool-tips also have been used to provide a pop-uptextual description of non-textual content such as an image.Specifically, upon occurrence of a mouse-over event in proximity to animage, a tool-tip can provide a textual explanation of the image. Still,while tool-tips have the inherent potential to be applied to many userinterface problems, tool-tips have not been applied to problems fallingoutside of the realm of “explaining” elements of a user interface.

Screen capturing technology has been an important part of computingtechnology for many years. Screen capturing specifically refers to thegeneration of a stored image of a computer screen, much akin to a “snapshot”. Initially, screen capturing technology had been applied tocomputer education and training. In particular, screen capturing hadbecome an indispensable element of creating application training manualsso that the reader could associate textual, written instructions withinan application instruction manual to the desired result presented on thecomputer screen.

More recently, screen capturing technology has been used to transformthe user interface of a legacy application to a current application. Forinstance, the WebSphere.™. Host Access Transformation Server (HATS.™.),manufactured by International Business Machines Corporation of Armonk,N.Y., United States, provides a set of comprehensive tools for extendinglegacy applications such as those hosted within the 3270 and 5250operating environments into the World Wide Web (Web). To facilitate thetransformation of a mainframe or midrange hosted application to aWeb-based application, screen captures of the host application can beprocessed into Web screens dynamically with little or no userintervention.

Within transformation applications such as HATS, an integrateddevelopment environment can provide the transformation developer withresources to customize the resulting Web-based application. As part ofthe integrated development environment, a directory of screen capturedimages of the legacy application can be provided for selection by thedeveloper. Once a particular screen captured image has been selected,the screen captured image can be loaded and the developer can interactwith the loaded screen captured image in order to customize theoperation of the display in the Web-based application.

Screen captured images, like other traditional computer images, canrequire intense computing resources in order to load the particularscreen captured image. Consequently, it can be disadvantageous to load aparticular screen captured image unless the developer has specificintent to interact with the particular screen captured image. Where thescreen captured images have been stored using a less than descriptivenaming convention, however, it can be difficult to identify theparticular screen captured image with which a developer is desirous ofinteraction. Accordingly, notwithstanding the waste of computingresources, the developer will be compelled to load each screen capturedimage in order to identify the desired particular screen captured image.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is a tool-tip presentation system for multimediafiles such as screen captured images and complete audio files. Thetool-tip presentation system can be configured to respond to proximityevents associated with a selected entry in a list of complete multimediafiles such as screen captured images and audio files. Based upon theselected entry, a corresponding multimedia sample such as a thumbnailimage of a screen captured image or an audio sample can be retrieved andpresented as a tool-tip. In particular, the tool-tip can be displayed ina position which is proximate to the selected entry. In this way, onewho interacts with the list of complete multimedia files need not loadeach multimedia file in the list in order to determine the contents ofthe multimedia file. Rather, the multimedia sample in the tool-tip cansuffice.

In one aspect of the present invention, a tool-tip presentation systemcan include a list of screen captured images; a store of thumbnailimages corresponding to the screen captured images; and, tool-tip logicconfigured to detect a placement of a user interface input deviceproximate to an entry in the list of screen captured images, andresponsive to the detection, to retrieve and display a corresponding oneof the thumbnail images. Notably, the screen captured images can beimages of legacy host application screens. Also, the user interfaceinput device can be a mouse pointer. In that case, the tool-tip logiccan include an event handler programmed to detect a mouse-over eventcaused by placing the mouse pointer in a screen position which isproximate to the entry. Responsive to the detection, the tool-tip logiccan retrieve and display a corresponding one of the thumbnail images.

In another aspect of the invention, a tool-tip display system caninclude a modifiable coupling to an index of thumbnail images. Moreparticularly, each image can correspond to a particular screen capturedimage. A data member of the system further can be included and can beconfigured to store a reference to an entry in a list of screen capturedimages. Finally, display logic programmed to display as a tool-tip aselected thumbnail image specified in the index based upon a referenceto a screen captured image stored in the data member.

A tool-tip display method can include detecting a proximity eventassociated with a particular screen captured image in a list of screencaptured images. Responsive to the detection, a thumbnail image can belocated which corresponds to the particular screen captured image.Subsequently, the located thumbnail image can be displayed in a tool-tipin a position which is proximate to the particular screen captured imagein the list of screen captured images. Importantly, the proximity eventcan be a mouse-over event associated with the particular screen capturedimage.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

There are shown in the drawings embodiments which are presentlypreferred, it being understood, however, that the invention is notlimited to the precise arrangements and instrumentalities shown,wherein:

FIGS. 1A and 1B, taken together, are a pictorial illustration of agraphical tool-tip for use in presenting an exemplary representation ofan underlying screen capture;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a tool-tip system which has beenconfigured in accordance with the inventive arrangements; and,

FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrating a process for displaying a tool-tipof a selected screen capture in accordance with the inventivearrangements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is a multimedia tool-tip for screen captures. Inparticular, in accordance with the inventive arrangements, multimediasamples such as a thumbnail image or an audio sample can be generatedfrom a complete multimedia file such as a screen captured image or anaudio file stored within fixed storage. Each of the multimedia samplescan be linked to a trigger event associated with a listing of the storedcomplete multimedia files, such as an keyboard select or mouse-overevent. Upon the occurrence of the trigger event, the multimedia sampleassociated with the particular entry in the listing giving rise to thetrigger event can be presented through the use of a tool-tip. In thisway, the end-user can recognize the contents of the listed completemultimedia file without first loading the complete multimedia file fromstorage.

Importantly, the tool-tip system of the present invention advantageouslycan be applied to the integrated development environment of anapplication development system. In that regard, FIGS. 1A and 1B, takentogether, are a pictorial illustration of a multimedia tool-tip for usein presenting an exemplary representation of an underlying screencapture in a development environment. Turning first to FIG. 1A, anintegrated development environment is shown which can include, forinstance, a project tree 110 in which a listing of project files andsettings can be listed, and a project workspace 140 in which thecontents of individual ones of the project files and settings can bedisplayed.

The project tree 110 can include a hierarchy 120 of project files andsettings, such as source code, macros, project settings and the like.Notably, the hierarchy 120 also can include a listing of screen capturedimages 130, particularly, where the integrated development environmenthas been included as part of a transformation module of a host accesstransformation server intended to transform the user interface of ahost-based application to that of a Web-based application. In thatcircumstance, it would be expected by one skilled in the art that thelisting of screen captured images 130 would include images of selectedscreens in the host based application.

Ordinarily, in a development environment such as the environmentdepicted in FIGS. 1A and 1B, a developer can select an individual entryin the listing of screen captured images 130 so as to load and interactwith the particular selected screen captured image. Where the namingconvention applied to the listing of screen captured images 130,however, does not adequately describe the contents of each image in thelisting of screen captured images 130, it will not be necessary for thedeveloper to individually load each screen captured image in order toidentified a desired one of the screen captured images. Rather, as shownin FIG. 1B, the developer can position the mouse pointer 150 over thedesired entry in the listing of screen captured images 130 causing thedisplay of a tool-tip thumbnail 160 of the desired one of the screencaptured images.

Also, one skilled in the art will recognize that when applied not tographical thumbnails, but to audio samples, the multimedia tool-tip ofthe present invention can provide a “preview” of an underlying completeaudio file which are known in the art to be quite large and to requiresubstantial resources to load and playback. Notably, the use of an audiosample as a tool-tip also can provide an accessibility advantage tothose who might be considered visually impaired, or to those who do nothave an optimal visual view of the application. In that case, the audiosample can provide an audio cue of the contents of the underlyingcomplete audio file.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a tool-tip system which has beenconfigured in accordance with the inventive arrangements. The tool-tipsystem can include an application program 210 in which a listing ofscreen captured images 270 can be provided. The listing of screencaptured images 270 can include any operational representation of a setof screen captured images, such as a textual listing, a hierarchicaltree, a block of icons, or a bar of buttons, to name a few. Each entryin the listing of screen captured images 270 can be linked to eventlogic which can include fly-over logic 220. The fly-over logic 220 canprocess a mouse-over event, a selection event, or some other such eventwhich can be activated when a user input element such as a cursor ormouse pointer is placed above or in close proximity to a linked userinterface element. The fly-over logic 220 particularly can be configuredupon activation to load and display a thumbnail image of a screencaptured image associated with the linked user interface element. Inparticular, the fly-over logic 220 can be configured for activationafter a pre-set period of time has elapsed during which the mousepointer has remain nearly or completely idle, or within the boundary ofthe linked user interface element.

Each of the fly-over logic 220 and the application program 210 can becommunicatively coupled to fixed storage 230 in which a set of screencaptured images 240 can be stored. Each one of the screen capturedimages 240 can be processed in a thumbnail generation process 250 toproduce a corresponding thumbnail 260 which also can be stored in fixedstorage 230. In this way the fly-over logic 220, upon activation, canretrieve a suitable thumbnail image 260 associated with a screencaptured image 230 linked to a user interface element representing thescreen captured image 240 stored in fixed storage 230.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrating a process for displaying a tool-tipof a selected screen capture in accordance with the inventivearrangements. The process preferably can be performed in fly-over logicresponsive to a mouse-over event, though the invention is not so limitedto the occurrence of a mouse-over event or the performance of theprocess entirely within the fly-over logic. Beginning in block 310, themovement of the mouse can be detected. In decision block 320 it can bedetermined whether the mouse has been placed in proximity to an entry ina listing of screen captured images for a period of time which exceeds apre-configured duration. If not, the process can repeat through block310. Otherwise, in block 330, the particular screen captured image inproximity to which the mouse has been placed can be identified.

In block 340, a thumbnail image associated with the identified screencaptured image can be retrieved and in block 350 the retrieved thumbnailimage can be displayed. In decision block 360, if the mouse has movedout of proximity to the entry in the listing of screen captured images,in block 370 the thumbnail can be removed from display. Otherwise, thethumbnail can remain displayed through block 350.

The present invention can be realized in hardware, software or firmware,in a centralized fashion in one computer system, or in a distributedfashion where different elements are spread across severalinterconnected computer systems. Any kind of computer system, or otherapparatus adapted for carrying out the methods described herein, issuited to perform the functions described herein. A typical centralizedimplementation could include a general purpose computer system with acomputer program that, when being loaded and executed, controls thecomputer system such that it carries out the methods described herein.

Computer program or application in the present context means anyexpression, in any language, code or notation, of a set of instructionsintended to cause a system having an information processing capabilityto perform a particular function either directly or after either or bothof the following a) conversion to another language, code or notation; b)reproduction in a different material form. Significantly, this inventioncan be embodied in other specific forms without departing from thespirit or essential attributes thereof, and accordingly, referenceshould be had to the following claims, rather than to the foregoingspecification, as indicating the scope of the invention.

1. A tool-tip presentation system comprising: a list of completemultimedia files; a store of multimedia samples, each multimedia samplecorresponding to a particular complete multimedia file; and, tool-tiplogic configured to detect a placement of a user interface input deviceproximate to an entry in said list of complete multimedia files, andresponsive to said detection, to retrieve and present a correspondingone of said multimedia samples.
 2. The tool-tip display system of claim1, wherein said multimedia samples are screen captured images of legacyhost application screens.
 3. The tool-tip display system of claim 1,wherein said user interface input device is a mouse pointer.
 4. Thetool-tip display system of claim 3, wherein said tool-tip logiccomprises, an event handler programmed to detect a mouse-over eventcaused by placing said mouse pointer in a screen position which isproximate to said entry, and responsive to said detection, to retrieveand present a corresponding one of said multimedia samples.
 5. Thetool-tip display system of claim 1, wherein said multimedia samples areaudio samples of underlying complete audio files.
 6. The tool-tipdisplay system of claim 1, wherein said multimedia samples are audiosamples providing an audible summary corresponding to said completemultimedia files.
 7. A tool-tip presentation system, comprising: amodifiable coupling to an index of multimedia samples, each multimediasample corresponding to a particular complete multimedia file; a datamember of the system configured to store a reference to an entry in alist of complete multimedia files; and, presentation logic programmed topresent as a tool-tip a selected multimedia sample specified in saidindex based upon a reference to a complete multimedia file stored insaid data member.
 8. The tool-tip presentation system of claim 7,wherein each said multimedia sample comprises one of an audio sample anda thumbnail image, and each said corresponding particular completemultimedia file comprises one of a complete audio file and a screencaptured image.
 9. A tool-tip display method comprising the steps of:detecting a proximity event associated with a particular screen capturedimage in a list of screen captured images; responsive to said detection,locating a thumbnail image which corresponds to said particular screencaptured image and displaying said located thumbnail image in a tool-tipin a position which is proximate to said particular screen capturedimage in said list of screen captured images.
 10. The method of claim 9,wherein said proximity event is a mouse-over event.
 11. A machinereadable storage having stored thereon a computer program for displayinga tool-tip, said computer program comprising a routine set ofinstructions which when executed by the machine cause the machine toperform the steps of: detecting a proximity event associated with aparticular screen captured image in a list of screen captured images;responsive to said detection, locating a thumbnail image whichcorresponds to said particular screen captured image and displaying saidlocated thumbnail image in a tool-tip in a position which is proximateto said particular screen captured image in said list of screen capturedimages.
 12. The machine readable storage of claim 11, wherein saidproximity event is a mouse-over event.